For reasons that will soon become apparent (yes, that’s a teaser), Matt and I wanted to figure out how heavy Camarasaurus was.  This is the story of how I almost completely badgered up part of that problem.  I am publishing it as a cautionary tale because I am very secure and don’t mind everyone knowing that I’m an idiot.

The hot news on the block right now is the description of the new sauropod Abydosaurus mcintoshi , which, amazingly, is known from four more or less complete skulls (Chure et al. 2010).  This is unheard of — absolutely unprecedented.  There are few enough sauropods for which a skull is known at all; but four of them, all in decent nick, is breathtaking.

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-2446 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“2446” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2009/12/22/here-comes-santaposeidon/2009-12-19-zoo-and-museums-192/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/2009-12-19-zoo-and-museums-192.jpg” orig-size=“2048,1536” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"3.1","credit":"","camera":"COOLPIX

This is part 3 of an emerging and occasional SV-POW!

UPDATE December 3, 2009 I screwed up, seriously. Tony Thulborn writes in a comment below to correct several gross errors I made in the original post. He’s right on every count. I have no defense, and I am terribly sorry, both to Tony and to everyone who ever has or ever will read this post.

Today sees the publication of the new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology , and with it my paper on the two best-known brachiosaurs and why they’re not congeneric (Taylor 2009).  This of course is why I have been coyly referring to “Brachiosaurus” brancai in the last few months … I couldn’t bear to make the leap straight to saying Giraffatitan , a name that is going to take me a while to get used to. But before we